Break Me Now
by LeeT911
Summary: Eventually things would go back to the way they were. Everwood was healing. But Amy was not. Set before My Brother's Keeper


Break Me Now

_Everwood_ fanfiction by LeeT911  (LeeT911@hotmail.com)

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Amy paused as the door creaked open, filling the hallway with breathtaking music.  She stood just outside the auditorium, her hand on the door, holding it open a crack.  Usually, she would slip inside and sit down in the empty room .  Ephram never noticed her, since he had his back to the door.  He was too busy playing, consumed by his music.  She enjoyed watching him rehearse, enjoyed seeing his composed intensity lose itself in his passion.  It soothed her.  When he played, she got to see past the carefully practiced aloofness and into the real Ephram buried deep inside.  Listening to him play let her forget the life she was pointlessly carrying on.  It somehow enabled her to empty her mind and not think about everything that went wrong.

The past week, he had been practicing religiously.  Whatever had caused him to stray from the piano before was gone now.  It was as though he had rediscovered his purpose.  Every free moment was spent in front of the instrument.  She couldn't tell if he had gotten any better though.  He was already the best pianist she knew, and his improvement would have been beyond her perceptive abilities.

Today, however, the music didn't calm her.  Today, Ephram was playing something that strangely fit her mood, something appropriately gloomy and discordant.  He hammered away vigorously, as he always did, but this piece defied him.  It was new, she was sure of that, she had never heard him play it before.  It wasn't that he played poorly, in fact for a first try, it was fantastic.  It's just that this time the music happened to be something a little darker.  The melody emanating from the piano was filled with deep low notes and long melancholic chords.

Every now and then, there would be a stumble, and the music would stop, but the tune picked up again after only a moment.  Amy held her breath at every pause, somehow hoping that Ephram would change his mind and play something else.

Her wishes weren't answered.

It seemed that there wasn't anything left for her here, in Everwood.  Every morning, she dragged herself out of bed and went through the day only because she had to.  Her reactions to events around her had become reflex and not decision.  She came to school, and just went through the motions.  She went to class, and put her head down on the desk, or stared at the wall, or out the window, or she would just sit there, blank and unfeeling, lost in daydreams of a life misplaced.

How could everyone forget about Colin so quickly?  Bright was over it, and even if he wasn't, he was smart enough to act as though he was.  Laynie was the same.  Whatever pain she still felt was carefully buried beneath that mask of indifference.  Even the great Andrew Brown was on the road to recovery.  He was seeing patients again, and few as they may be, eventually things would go back to the way they were.  Everwood was healing.  But Amy was not.

Dejected, she sighed, releasing the door she was holding.  The latched clicked into place, perfect soundproofing plunging the hallway into sudden silence.  She found she didn't care anymore.  She didn't care about anything.  The urge to scream rose in her, and she repressed it, clenching her fists tightly.

Where another might have reacted violently, all Amy felt was a total sense of apathy.  She wanted nothing more than to lie down and forget about the world.  She wished she were at home so she could crawl into bed and watch television.  It was numbing, having the screen project coloured images to occupy her mind while her body lay nestled in soft warmth.

If only she didn't have to do this.  If only she didn't have to go on.  It would be so much easier.  If only Colin were still here...

He had meant so much to her.  It scared her, how much her life had moved around Colin.  Even as kids, they had played together, they had been friends.  Then they were schoolmates, and soulmates.  And even after the accident, when Colin had lay comatose in the hospital, every weekend she had made the trip to Denver to visit him, to talk to him, to read to him.  Every weekend, she had sat there next him, holding his hand, for hours on end, hoping that he would wake up.

And now, all of that meant nothing.  Colin was gone.  Forever.

She wanted to cry, but she had moved past that long ago.  Those first few weeks after Colin's death, there had been tears in her eyes continually.  Now, the need was still there, but the physical signs were invisible.  The pain was dull and muted, and the tears would no longer come unless she called them consciously.

She hated it, hated the fact that she was no longer allowed to show the pain she still felt, as though it were unnatural somehow.  She hated the fact that people continually harped on her to cheer up and look ahead.  But most of all, she hated the fact that the only person who completely understood her grief was Doctor Andrew Brown.  She had lost the love of her life; and so had he.

When she had first heard about the new doctor, she had known about the tragedy.  And she had feigned sympathy along with everyone else.  But all she really wanted, was another chance with Colin.  So her intentions hadn't been completely noble at the outset, but that had changed.  Now, she knew the torment he must have endured at the time.  Now, the sympathy she felt was real, but not expressed.  It was too late anyhow.

She didn't want to blame him.  The rational part of her mind knew that Doctor Brown had done everything that Colin asked for.  She couldn't really ask for more.  And yet...  It still aggravated her.  It upset her to know that he could have tried harder, that he could have tried something else.  Somehow, the possibility that Colin could have been a vegetable, or worse, never occurred to her.

At first, every time she saw him, the anger bloomed.  But now, now there was no more of that.  Now there was only the cold empty feeling of regret.  Someone had told her once, what the stages of grief were, but she couldn't remember them anymore.  She couldn't recall if apathy was one of them.  She found she didn't care.

So she stood in the silent hallway, and all her thoughts were of death.  Through a window, the sun shone bright in the clear blue sky, but Amy wanted only to hide in some deep dark hole.  She knew this preoccupation with her loss was unhealthy, and yet she felt powerless against it.  To ask her to stop thinking about it, was to tell her to stop thinking at all.  Sometimes that didn't sound like such a bad idea.

She let out a big despondent sigh, completely caught up in her own morbid mentality.  She didn't hear Laynie come up behind her, didn't notice until the other girl placed a hand on her elbow.

"What are doing?"  Laynie asked, with that air of nonchalance so typical of her.

"Nothing."

"That's the problem.  You don't do _anything anymore."_

"I don't care."  Amy mumbled, amazed at how those three simple words expressed her emotional dysfunction so flawlessly.

"You should though.  And since I'm such a great friend, I made plans for us this weekend.  Now I know you're not doing anything else, and there's this party happening."  Laynie smiled, and if Amy had been paying attention, she would have noticed the smile was less than genuine and that Laynie was talking her into something.

"Whatever."

Laynie went on, describing in great detail everything she thought they should do and would do in advance.  Through it all, Amy pretended to listen, nodding her head and looking up at the right times.  Party, no party, it no longer mattered to her.  She found herself following Laynie because there was nothing else to do.  She agreed with everything the other girl said, only because it was the easy way out.  It was so much easier to just drift with current.  The last thing her life needed was another conflict.

So when Laynie suggested they meet up the next day at lunch, Amy consented mindlessly.  She wasn't really interested in the party, but Laynie seemed so enthusiastic.  Maybe it would be good for her to just get away from it all, forget about everything, if that was even possible.

A small part of her realized how skewed her decision-making process had become, but the apathy won out in the end.  Lately, it seemed that apathy was winning a lot of battles.  The thought bothered her a lot less than it should have.

Amy was broken, so utterly broken... and she found she didn't care. 

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END


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